ATLANTA—It could have been either one of them at the end, the player who rescued the game or the one who seized it. Louisville senior point guard Peyton Siva had the basketball with fewer than 40 seconds remaining and a lead that needed to be protected, but he wisely passed it to teammate Luke Hancock and forced the Michigan Wolverines to foul him.

So it was Hancock who made the first set of free throws that started the Cardinals fans toward believing they were winning the 2013 NCAA championship, and when Siva was fouled with 12.9 seconds left he literally ran to the foul line and made two more. The hugs on the bench began a moment later, but Rick Pitino stepped away in thought before he allowed himself to be a part of it.

Perhaps he was thinking of his best friend and brother-in-law, Billy Minardi, who passed away in the 9/11 attacks and still inspires him. Perhaps he was thinking of how there could have been so many more of these moments if he’d never left the Kentucky job for the millions the Boston Celtics paid to him. He might even have thought for a second about being elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame earlier in the day. When he finally turned back to hug his coaches, though, he was thinking about Louisville 82, Michigan 76, which made him the first coach ever to win a national title at two schools—and obviously the first ever to win it at two rival schools.

"Players put coaches in the Hall of Fame," Pitino said during the trophy ceremony. "Tonight, Chane Behanan's guts on the backboards put me in the Hall of Fame."

Siva, meanwhile, was thinking about how quickly he could get over the press table to embrace his father, who screamed in delight at the wonder his son had achieved.

The one constant in an often dazzling second half was Siva, who showed such flair under pressure in the 2012 Big East Tournament, commencing a run that carried last season’s team to the Final Four.

On the day before the game, the Cardinals talked about how much they believed the experience of merely being here 12 months ago helped their performance this time around, against Wichita State in the semifinal and, to an even greater degree, when they played the Wolverines.

Because after falling behind by a dozen points in the first half and being bailed out of that calamity by junior forward Luke Hancock—who was sitting out as a transfer when the Cards played Kentucky in New Orleans last season—the Louisville veterans played the second half as though they believed this game was rightfully theirs.

Siva was 1-of-4 and had scored four points at halftime. He attacked in the final 20 minutes with a brutal intensity that resulted in 14 second-half points—giving him a team-high 18—plus two essential second-half steals and the leadership the other Cardinals followed.

Center Gorgui Dieng, the tournament’s best player until the Final Four began, fought off a three-half slump that had enveloped him here in Georgia and hit 3-of-4 from the field, including a sweet 16-foot jumper when the Wolverines trapped Siva off a ball screen and a running hook shot with 4:49 left that put the Cardinals ahead 71-64.

They knew they had their title then, because the final five minutes of the game have belonged to them as though bequeathed by Denny Crum, Pervis Ellison and Darrell Griffith. In single-elimination games against major opponents—in the Big East and NCAA Tournaments—the Cardinals never lost that last segment of the game. They were a collective plus-34 entering the final.

This time, they won those final five minutes by a single point, the lowest total in that stretch. It was enough.

On the 75th anniversary of the first Final Four, we had a first half that called to mind so many legendary nights from America’s most magical sporting event.

We had echoes of the 1983 national title game, when Houston All-American Clyde Drexler picked up two quick fouls that crippled his ability to compete in the game. The difference when Michigan’s Trey Burke found himself in the same jam, however, is that Michigan coach John Beilein did not leave his star in the game to pick up a third (and then a fourth), as newly minted Hall of Famer Guy Lewis did three decades ago.

Beilein turned to freshman Spike Albrecht, who might have been an Ivy Leaguer by now if his test scores in high school had been a smidge higher. Instead he wound up in prep school and Beilein, searching for a backup to Burke, swept Albrecht away from Brown and Appalachian State. Thus was Albrecht available to pull off a Cameron Dollar impersonation against the Cardinals.

In 1995, Dollar came off the UCLA bench to sub for star point guard Tyus Edney, who had severely sprained his right wrist in the semifinal victory over Oklahoma State. Dollar did not light up the scoreboard, but he rose from relatively obscure reserve to Final Four hero over 36 minutes in which he passed for eight assists and guided the Bruins to their 11th title.

Filling in for Burke, Albrecht tore through the Louisville defense as though he were playing pop-a-shot. Albrecht’s first three shots, all from 3-point range, established his career scoring high. And he wasn’t done. He finished the first half 6-of-7 from the field for 17 points. His brilliance helped Michigan surge to a 12-point lead at the 3:56 mark, which Albrecht celebrated by jumping in the air and pumping his fists as the Wolverines headed toward their bench for a timeout.

In what little remained of the first half, the game began to take on the feel of the 1988 Kansas-Oklahoma title game, during which the Jayhawks and Sooners traded baskets so furiously they wound up tied 50-all at the half.

Hancock’s only try at a shot in the first 16 minutes came when he faked Burke into the air and then jumped to shoot, absorbing contact from Burke as he descended. It was a move Hancock had executed perfectly against Wichita State, and that was the foul that sent Burke to the bench.

Hancock made two of those free throws, but otherwise was silent during his first nine minutes on the floor. Then he found his spot, nailing four consecutive 3-pointers, all from the right wing, the last two of which should have been prevented by all-out Wolverines scrambles. They lost Hancock in transition with 1:52 left, after Caris LeVert missed a 3-pointer, and the basket scored there cut Louisville’s deficit to just 36-32.

It was even more astonishing that a UM player would turn his back on Hancock when he was involved in a pick and roll. The big defender appeared to turn away from Hancock when he held the ball in order to recover his own man, but that left Hancock alone to make his fourth consecutive 3-pointer and cut the Wolverines’ lead to a single point. When Siva picked up a steal and threw an absurd floating lob pass for freshman forward Montrezl Harrell, and Harrell nearly pulled the rim down completing the play, the Cards had completed a 16-5 run to grab a 36-37 lead.

Only a couple of late free throws from freshman forward Glenn Robinson, earned with a strong move in the lane with 2.5 seconds left, allowed the Wolverines to escape to halftime with a 38-37 lead in a game they once appeared to own.